New Course - HIST 316: Modern Science from Copernicus to Istanbul University

Did you know that the original laboratory was the product of early modern alchemy, that there was no such thing as scientist before the 1850s and that the research university was a German invention? Isaac Newton thought that no one who believed in the Christian Trinity could be trusted in matters of science. Michael Faraday never had a university education. Charles Darwin was not the first to come up with the idea of evolution. Albert Einstein was working at a patent office in Switzerland as a young physicist because he couldn’t find a teaching job.

This new history of science course traces the development of modern science from its origins in the 17^th century to its maturation in the early 20^th century. We will be looking at not only the emergence and the subsequent career of scientific ideas, but also at the growth and transformation of the scientific establishment within its various social and cultural contexts. After we have split the atom at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, we will end our course in familiar territory with a retrospective on science in the Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic.

Come join. Meetings take place on Mondays between 14:40 and 17:30 in FASS 2119. Syllabus and introductory materials are already posted on SUCourse. Contact Harun Küçük (harunkucuk@sabanciuniv.edu) if you have any questions.